The Govan group of carved stones contains a number of standing crosses and
cross-slabs; no other site in Strathclyde of this period has so many[1]. The
finest of these is known as the "Jordanhill" Cross because it spent so much
time in the grounds of Jordanhill House during the last century.

Conflicting accounts exist of its removal from Govan to Jordanhill. Stuart,
who saw it at Jordanhill and illustrated it in 1856, wrote that "it was
dug out of the old church at Govan, at the time when the ancient fabric was
pulled down" in 1762, and transferred at that time to Jordanhill[2]. On the
other hand, it was stated in 1928 that it had been given to the laird of
Jordanhill ( Mr. James Smith ) "about 100 years ago" as a reward for his help
as one of the heritors of Govan in the erection of the new parish kirk in
1826[3].

Its return to Govan is better recorded. The Jordanhill estate was acquired by
the Education Authority of Glasgow Corporation in 1911 for the re-housing
of its teacher training college[4], and at this time, or soon after, the
stone was removed to the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum of Kelvingrove for
storage. In the autumn of 1928, the stone was deposited by the Corporation
in Govan Kirk, and erected in one of the arches beside the chancel. Finally,
in 1965, it was moved into the transept to its present position[5].

When the cross-shaft came back to Govan in 1928, it was not accompanied by
a base or socket-stone. I was concerned to know whether it had had a base at
the time of its removal to Jordanhill, which had possibly been abandoned at
Jordanhill ( as, for example, has the socket-stone of the Barochan Cross,
now left isolated on a hillside near Houston while the cross itself has been
moved into Paisley Abbey for shelter )[6]. But the cross's location at
Jordanhill was unknown.

Jordanhill House, demolished in 1960-61, was a fine three-storey late
Georgian mansion house. It stood on the very top of Jordanhill, on the site
of the present Crawfurd Building. Parts of the layout of the Jordanhill
Estate buildings and grounds are still visible around the Crawfurd Building:
behind it to the west is the southern half of a sunken garden ( the northern
part has been built over with the Crawfurd Theatre ); in front of it to the
east is a lawn sloping down to a small fish-pond; beyond the pond was a large
walled garden, now partly built over with the Smith Building and partly
forming the Smith Building car park; parts of the high brick walls and some of
the glasshouses of the walled garden are still visible behind the Smith
Building.

The cross-shaft in the garden of Jordanhill House

There is no visible indication remaining to show where the Govan Cross was
erected at Jordanhill. However, a photograph album of black-and-white prints
of Jordanhill House, now in the Parker Smith Collection in Glasgow City
Archives ( copies of the prints are also kept in the Jordanhill Library )[7],
reveals its location: it stood in the sunken garden behind the house, just a
few yards in front of the west door. Its approximate position is now occupied
by a large yellow plastic dustbin, within the remains of the sunken garden
behind the Crawfurd Building. Another monument which used to stand in the
same garden, a slender stone pillar about five metres in height, has been
removed to the car park beside the student residences to the west of the main
buildings at Jordanhill.

The photograph which shows the cross's position in the sunken garden does not
show any trace of an original socket-stone or base. Rather, the shaft
appears to have been erected on the low stone wall of a raised flowerbed.
So one question has been answered: there was no original stone base left
behind at Jordanhill when the cross was taken to Kelvingrove and thence back
to Govan.

The photograph is reproduced here ( Plate 2 ). However, much the Friends of
Govan Old will rejoice at the return of one of their ancient crosses to its
rightful home in Govan, everyone must regret the demolition of Jordanhill
House, one of Glasgow's many handsome Georgian mansion houses, most of
which have disappeared.

There is interest in seeing how the Parker Smiths chose to display their
antiquarian possession as a garden ornament. This does not help, of course,
in determining the cross's location at Govan. However, parallels can be made
with other "Celtic" churches which had collections of standing crosses. At
Iona, the three standing crosses which are in situ stood close together
to the west the monastery church. At Clonmacnoise, three crosses stood
close together to the north, west and south of the cathedral church whose
entrance was in the west wall. At Castledermot, an Irish Céli Dé
house possibly of similar date to Govan, three or more crosses and a hogback
stone stood in a wide arc round the north, west and south sides of the church
and round tower. At Glasgow, Govan's nearest neighbour, Joscelin of Furness
recorded seeing c.1180 a great monolithic cross in the cemetery, which the
faithful passed on their way into church[8]

Perhaps we should guess that the standing crosses in the enclosure at
Govan stood near the kirk, and were visible to the congregation as they
moved from the entrance of the enclosure towards the kirk at its centre. The
excavations at Govan in the summer of 1996 have uncovered the roadway at the
entrance to the enclosure in the south-east corner, and have indicated that
the church itself probably stood in the centre, near the south end of the
present building[9]. If we assume that the early church at Govan had a
public entrance in the south wall, like its successors[10], and like the
Romanesque church at Old Kilpatrick[11], we might imagine that the roadway
ran from the south-east corner of the enclosure to the south door of the church
at its centre. The "Jordanhill Cross", "Cuddy Stane", "Sun Stone" and the
nameless cross, which at the time of writing is displayed upside-down, could
be pictured forming a loose group in a wide arc to the west, south and east
of the church.

None of the Govan crosses is complete, and the shape of their heads is
probably now conjectural. The tenon on top of the "Sun Stone" is too shallow
to have secured a big cross-head in place, and, more likely held some kind
of decorative finial. It has been suggested that the "Cuddy Stane" could
likewise have been a cross-slab, but its breadth, 0.38m, is more consistent
with its being the shaft of a free-armed cross. An incised cross on one face
is not evidence to the contrary; there is a cross on the lowest panel on one
face of the Arthurlie Cross, which definitely had a cross-head[12]. Vestigial
traces at the tops of the shafts of the Arthurlie, Inchinnan and Lochwinnoch
crosses show that these, like Barochan and Kilwinning, were ring-headed
crosses. There is no reason to doubt that the "Jordanhill Cross" was
similarly ring-headed. Enough of its shoulders and neck survives to show
that on the face with the horseman it had a cross-head knot similar to, but
not identical with, that on the Barochan Cross. A similar knot, executed on
a recumbent slab, is to be seen on Govan ECMS no. 7, which might be regarded
as a trial-piece for a cross-head[13]. The sculptor who executed the
replica beside the modern kirkyard entrance onto Govan Road was definitely
working along the right lines, although the examples at Barochan, Lochwinnoch
and Kilwinning suggest that the ring may have been unpierced.

These crosses, placed in highly visible positions around the enclosure, would
have presented a powerful message to the faithful as they approached the
church. Partly this was a message of sanctity and Christian symbolism. But it
was also a message of prestige, wealth and patronage. The standing crosses,
like the hogback and recumbent grave markers, indicate that ancient Govan was
a high-status kirk and burial ground, a major religious focal point for
a wide area round about.

References

I. Fisher, "The Govan cross-shafts and early cross slabs", in A. Ritchie, ed.,
"Govan and its Early Mediaeval Sculpture" ( Stroud, 1994 ), pp.47-53, at 47.
If, as I suspect, the "Mountblow" cross came originally from Kilpatrick,
then there must once have been a group of at least two crosses there.

The process of converting Jordanhill Estate to a teacher training college
was a long one. The site was acquired in 1911 and building work commenced
two years later; but the Great War intervened, and teacher training at
Jordanhill did not commence until 1921. Cf. M. M. Harrison and W. B. Marker,
"Teaching the teachers: the history of Jordanhill College of Education
1828-1993" ( Edinburgh, 1996 )

Davidson Kelly, op. cit. pp.15-16

The abandonment of the base of Barochan Cross, an integral part of that
monument, is inexplicable. The cross stood originally in a field beside
Barochan Mill; the ruins of the mill are still visible behind a row of
cottages on the B789 Houston to Langbank Road ( NS404698), but the
original position of the cross cannot be traced.